Shakespeare's Jest Books (Barnes & Noble Digital Library)

This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading.Shakespeares Jest Books is an anthology of humorous, often bawdy anecdotes and jokes from late medieval England. Collected in 1864 by the British bibliographer William Carew Hazlitt, the jest books are haphazard in their authorial ascriptions: they have origins in the oral tradition and anthologized the professional foolery of noted clowns Richard Tarlton and Will Kemp. Shakespeares most notable direct reference to the jest books appears in Much Ado About Nothing, during one of the plays memorable witty exchanges between Beatrice and Benedick; Beatrice complains to her gentlewoman Ursula of Benedick: that I had my good wit out of the Hundred Merry Taleswell, this was Signior Benedick that said so.